Barton: EPD stink heads to court

Supporters of a cleaner Ogeechee River and other Georgia waterways will get their day in court Monday.

Wish them luck. They may need it.

The Ogeechee Riverkeeper organization, a nonprofit group cast in the underdog role against Gov. Nathan Deal and the state’s executive branch, is challenging the secretive consent order that the state Environmental Protection Division reached on the sly last summer with King America Finishing.

That’s the Chicago-based company that operates the textile plant along the Ogeechee in Screven County, the one implicated in the biggest fish kill in Georgia’s history.

During an investigation of that catastrophe, the EPD found that King America had been violating anti-pollution guidelines for five years.

State environmental officials could have hammered the company with up to $91 million in fines and, in the process, sent a strong, clear message to other potential polluters of Georgia’s waterways.

Instead, the agency that’s headed by a political appointee folded like a $5.99 beach chair.

It agreed to accept a relatively paltry $1 million from the Illinois firm to pay for yet-undetermined projects on the Ogeechee, which was once one of Georgia’s most vibrant rivers. Now, it’s more like a conduit for getting rid of stuff.

The Riverkeeper group turned outrage into action. It filed suit against the EPD, stating the obvious. It said the agency that’s supposed to work for Georgians had its priorities backward — it didn’t allow for public comment before it struck a private deal with King America, but it did allow the plant to conduct business as usual.

Yet the group got punished for questioning what the governor’s lieutenants did behind closed doors.

An Atlanta administrative law judge, Lois Oakley, thumped them. She ruled last year that South Georgians who live along the Ogeechee, swim in the Ogeechee, fish in the Ogeechee and paddle and enjoy the Ogeechee have no business questioning what the power brokers in Atlanta deem best for the Ogeechee.

So case closed. Go away, Ogeechee-lovers. You don’t have standing. Chew on a dead catfish instead.

But it’s not over until one more person in black robes sings in Statesboro.

On Monday afternoon, the Riverkeeper group will get a last crack in the Bulloch County Courthouse at exposing the rottenness in the state’s consent agreement.

Turner was elected to the Superior Court bench in 1996. Prior to that, he served three terms on the State Court bench. He also served as an assistant district attorney and a public defender.

Given his independent background — he doesn’t appear to owe the governor anything — the Riverkeeper seems to have a shot.

Except it’s tough to predict how good it is.

The people who spoke up the last time in court and questioned what the EPD did — people like Wayne Carney, Tommy Pope, William F. Eason, Monroe Schuman, Kristy Pope, Joe Hunter and Richard Nash — don’t have silk-stocking Atlanta law firms on retainer. They don’t write big checks to politicians or wine and dine them at fancy restaurants.

About the best they could do is take big shots like the governor on a boat ride on the Ogeechee below King America’s discharge pipe (assuming there’s enough water and it doesn’t smell too badly), then maybe to a fish fry (with non-Ogeechee fish).

The denim and ball cap crowd tends to have a tougher time in courtrooms than the dark suit and Italian shoe contingent.

But consider location.Bulloch County straddles the Ogeechee. And while the justice system is supposed to be blind and impartial, what about the other senses, like smell?

Atlanta is about 180 miles away from the King Finishing plant. It’s hard to detect the stink of last year’s deal between King’s attorneys and the EPD when you’re an administrative law judge who’s far away from the river on Peachtree Street.

But Judge Turner is much closer to the Ogeechee. And he may have a better nose.